They saw four identical brown Suburbans, each roof festooned with a rack of what is known in the law enforcement community as “Bubble Gum Machines,” approaching and then disappearing beneath the canopied entrance to the Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort.
“American Express is here,” Castillo said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Roscoe asked.
“Juan Carlos calls them that because he never leaves home without them,” Castillo explained.
“Your friend has a CaseyBerry?” Britton asked.
“I could do no less for the only honest police officer in Mexico,” Castillo said. He turned to former Marine Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley.
“Lester, stand by the door. Our guests are about to arrive. The rest of you are cautioned not to make any sudden moves when they arrive.”
Three minutes later the doorbell chimes bonged pleasantly. Lester pulled the door open. Three burly police officers came through the door, each armed with an Uzi submachine gun. They quickly surveilled the room, and then one of them gestured for whoever was still outside that it was safe to enter.
Jack Britton was impressed. During his career with the Philadelphia Police Department, he had once served on the SWAT team. His professional assessment of these people was that they really knew “how to take a door.”
A short, stocky, unkempt olive-skinned man in a baggy suit and two more uniformed officers carrying Uzis came through the door.
Max dropped the suntan lotion bottle, rushed toward the man, put his paws on his shoulders—which pinned him to the wall—and then enthusiastically lapped at his face.
“Carlitos, you sonofabitch, you taught him to do that to me!” Juan Carlos Pena said.
“No, it’s the remnants of your breakfast on your unshaven face,” Castillo said.
Pena pushed Max off him, and then he and Castillo approached each other and embraced.
When they broke apart, Pena asked, pointing to the Sienos, the Brittons, and Roscoe J. Danton, “Who are these people? Excuse me for asking, but I have learned to be very careful when I’m around you.”
“Dr. Britton, Sandra, is a philologist,” Castillo said. “Her husband, Jack, is not nearly so respectable. He used to be a cop. The Sienos, Susanna and Paul, have an even less respectable history, and Mr. Danton is a practitioner of a profession held in even lower prestige than being a congressman. He’s a journalist.”
Pena smiled.
“Well, he must like you. Carlito only insults his friends,” he said. “Which means I can move on to Question Two: What brings you to beautiful Cozumel? White-sand beaches and the sun setting over the sparkling Caribbean will not be a satisfactory answer.”
“We come to offer you a unique opportunity,” Castillo said.
“I’m afraid to ask what that might be, but I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I? Tell me about my unique opportunity.”
“Very few men are ever offered, as you are about to be, the opportunity of advising the President of the United States, Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, vis-à-vis how he should handle the Mexican drug cartels.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way down here—or up here; my guy at the airport said you came from Argentina—to ask me that. You already know the answer.”
“And what would that be, Señor Pena?” Susanna Sieno asked, in Spanish.
“Get people in the U.S. to stop buying illegal drugs,” Pena said.
“Ouch!” Castillo said.
“Carlitos, you know I’m right. If you Americans were not buying drugs, we Mexicans wouldn’t be slaughtering each other for the profitable privilege of moving them through Mexico and then across the border.”
“You’re right, Juan Carlos, but that’s not an answer the President will like.”
“Why not?”
“Let me tell you what we’re really doing here, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said, and did so.
“You’re telling me,” Juan Carlos asked when Castillo had finished, “that the President of the United States is not playing with a full deck?”